Experience Trumps Enthusiasm In Central Vs South Hill Matchup

Experience shone through over enthusiasm on Wednesday evening as the Central Cyclones JV boys basketball team had an easy time with the South Hill Royal Falcons (a combined team from Cornerstone Christian School and Riverview Collegiate).

The Cyclones would seemingly continually steal the ball and then with a layup wrack up another two points.

The Royal Falcons for their part just kept coming drawing loud applause from their 20 plus fans when they made a basket.

In the end though the Cyclones defeated the Royal Falcons 114 - 34.

For Royal Falcons head coach Kalen Senecal the team’s loss held a diamond in the rough. South Hill had improved from last week’s 65 - 35 loss to the Lumsden Devils, he said.

“I think we got a lot better compared to last week. For lots of our players tonight was their second game ever of basketball,” Senecal said.

“Improvement would be the name of the game and we saw that tonight…we want to get better all year.”

He pointed out how the Cyclones were noticeably a bigger and tougher team.

“They had a pretty athletic team tonight. I think we probably played (against) a lot of football players that (happen to) play some basketball. You could see it they had some phenomenal athletes.”

The Central Cyclones JV boys team is made up of grade 11 and grade 12 students whereas the South Hill Royal Falcons is in a rebuilding year as 10 members graduated from last year’s flying circus squad.

The Royal Falcons are in a rebuilding year with only three seniors on the 14 player roster and six players in grade nine. They also have one grade 11 student, two grade 12 students and five students in grade 10.

“It’s never bad to have competition in the league. We like to have competition in the league so we are happy to have them here,” Senecal said.

It’s a rebuild year for the Royal Falcons.

“We graduated 10 players last year and so what that means is we are back in the rebuilding process. We are back in JV hoping to get better this year.”

But he admits it’s going to take work.

“We are hopefully going to be getting better every game and we have a lot of grade nines and tens and hopefully we’ll be getting some good competition from junior teams throughout the year. We are looking to see how good things two years from now look.”

Asked if they had already written off the season Senecal said not at all.

“We hope we can become competitive in the semis at the end of March. We’ll see where we lie there,” he said.

A major strong point Senecal see on the team is their ball handling.

“We’ve got a couple of pretty good ball handlers. Seth Kohl in grade 10 is pretty good ball handler. He’s been aggressive and comfortable with everything. We’ve got Matias Alvarez who hit a shot from 40 feet today. He’s a really hod shooter and works on it everyday at lunch.”

Ethan Schultz - whose other sport is discus - was seen by Senecal as becoming a solid post presence for the Royal Falcons.

Experience is the Royal Falcons’ weak point.

“Just learning the rules. Learning the positions, starting fresh and learning just how basketball works” are what the Royal Falcons are up against Senecal said.

For the grade 9 students it’s particularly hard due the difference between the elementary and high school versions of the game.

“It’s a big jump from elementary to high school.”

He gave an example of how the play differs due to size.

“They’ve never seen somebody try to dunk a ball before. It’s a real eye opener for them.”

“The speed is way faster when you’re playing high school basketball. Where you had a second to make a decision (in elementary school basketball) you have half a second (in high school basketball)…so you have less time. You have to be ready to move and know where you are on the court at all time,” Senecal said.

Despite the problems associated with being a young and inexperienced team Senecal said they are highly enthusiastic group.

“They’re to hop in. It’s fun to see. You can see who is ready to step up. I saw quite a few faces at the end when I asked who wants to go in and everyone raised their hand. So that’s always a good point.”

Asked about the Gravelbourg situation - where that community dropped out of the regular JV league - Senecal said he had mixed feelings in that community’s basketball situation this year.

“It’s always tough to lose a team. It’s good to see they got things back up and running. Because we know they’re entered in a tournament or two this year,” he said.